


love is a battlefield

by coffeesuperhero



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Serious Injuries, Sifki Week, sickbed banter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-28
Updated: 2014-02-28
Packaged: 2018-01-14 01:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1246843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeesuperhero/pseuds/coffeesuperhero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sif takes an injured Loki for aid. Written for Sifki Week 2014 on tumblr, prompt, "on the battlefield."</p>
            </blockquote>





	love is a battlefield

**Author's Note:**

> Technically they're headed _off_ the battlefield in this story, but hey, I'm a sucker for sickbed(ish) banter, okay. PLEASE NOTE: story has **Canon-typical violence & serious injuries. Trigger warning for mentions of blood**. 
> 
> Apologies to Pat Benatar for the title; I couldn't resist.

"You are so _stupid_ sometimes," Sif swears, dragging Loki mercilessly along beside her across the hard ground. The arm he had slung about her shoulders does not so much grip her any longer as it hangs about her neck, and she struggles to hurry. Teeth set, eyes forward, heart hammering, she moves them onward, walking for them both when his legs will not support his slight weight. She will not think on the sticky blood that coats her fingers; she will not think on the pallor of his skin or the look of shock and pain on his face when the enemy-- for once, not him, but someone else-- had breached his protective spells. His breath is a broken blade in her ears against the background of the battle she attempts to leave behind, but she will not hear it, not now. Instead, she focuses on the encampment ahead, the white tent of the healers with its flags flying high, promising both of them relief. 

Next to her, he mumbles something, but his head hangs down by her jaw and the words are muffled against it, swallowed up by the tangled strands of their hair as she carries him. 

"What was that, fool?" she snaps.

"I said, _I am still smarter than you_ ," comes the reply, and though the words are strained and forced, there is life enough in him that his words still retain a good portion of his usual hauteur, and despite their predicament, she finds herself smiling as they stumble forward. 

"Highly debatable," she tells him, and he grunts his disapproval. If he is alive enough to argue, she knows he will be fine. The tension in her shoulders eases. 

"Your concern is touching," he says, and then when she grips his hip to pull him up and over a rocky crevice, too tired to go around, he groans, "Literally. Have a care, Sif." 

"I do," she mutters, her teeth biting into her lip as she tries to keep some of the concern out of her voice. She does not manage nearly well enough, and he tries to laugh at her, but he hasn't the breath.

It's just as well: his silence lets her listen to the battle that rages on behind them, enables her to hear the volley of arrows that have come from the fray seek them out. Flame and metal fly past her ear as she shoves them both to the ground just in time. No longer capable of hiding the pain he feels, a loud cry escapes him; fresh blood wells up around her fingers where she holds them against his side. When she is confident that their enemies have stopped firing upon them, she sits carefully, intending to bring up with her, but his eyes are closed and his breath barely raises his chest. She slaps him hard, once, and he jolts awake again, eyes open but unseeing, and she leans over and grips his face with one bloodstained hand, the tips of her fingers smearing blood across his pale skin. 

"You can't die," she orders. "Think of all the worlds you haven't tried to conquer." 

She counts her own heartbeats while ever so slowly his breathing strengthens and his eyes open, focusing eventually on her face. "This one, for example?" he says at last, and she shakes her head. 

"Surely so," she answers, gritting her teeth. Her words may be in jest, but well she knows that some part of him hears them in earnest. Were he not already injured, she would consider doing him an injury herself out of frustration. How very like him, to cling to life by a rope of treasonous words. She rolls her eyes as she continues, voice flat like the broad side of her blades. "Consider it. All of Alfheim, yours for the taking. You can melt Mjolnir and make yourself a crown." 

"Thor would never forgive me," he says, malevolent delight lacing through the pain in his eyes, and though he still grimaces from the pain, but happily enough for someone who is mortally wounded. "You know, that isn't a terrible idea." 

"That's the spirit," she says grimly. There is a loud booming noise from the battlefield beyond, and she spares a glance over her shoulder. Unhappy with what she sees, she turns back to him. "Can you stand? I have a battle to return to, and no intention of playing nursemaid to you." 

"More's the pity," he groans as she helps him his feet, and she knows he must be in considerable pain, for he cannot even bring himself to leer at her the way he would have done otherwise. He falls silent for too long, and she jostles him until he groans and wakes again. 

"Armies to command, worlds to rule," she reminds him, grunting as the sagging weight of him beside her pulls her toward the ground. "So much trouble to make. Can't leave it all for someone else, can you?" 

"You shouldn't encourage me," he mutters. 

"Indeed, and yet I do," she sighs. 

His answering "Why?" is so quiet that she barely knows if she should respond, and they struggle ahead for several paces before she does. 

"If you should make your way to Valhalla, Loki, with whom would I fight?" 

It is a jest. It is also as much love as ever passes between them, disguised as usual in acts of war, and fittingly, he spits out a mouthful of blood before replying. 

"Keeping me alive for selfish reasons, Sif? I'm impressed." 

"You have a bad habit of dying," she accuses. "I am attempting to break you of it, for I have attended too many of your funerals. It's taxing." 

"I agree," he says, his head not so much nodding as bobbing, chin nearly at his chest. "I've attended at least half of them, I should know." 

"I hate you," she sighs, but it is only partially true. The part of it that is a lie does not presently deserve consideration.

"Then why are you doing this? We are not allies," he points out, but she shakes her head.

"Aren't we? I have learned to take a shorter view of the word, when it comes to you," she says, renewed energy surging up as the healer's tent draws ever nearer. He will not draw his last breath today, at the least. "You are not _presently_ my enemy, and I think you are too weak to put a knife in my side at the moment. That is what I know." 

"Is that a challenge?" he asks, but he makes absolutely no move toward her, and she shakes her head at him as at long last they reach the encampment. 

"Take some care, he is badly wounded," she tells the healer who comes to take him. 

"Only some, my lady?" he manages to say as they carry him off. 

She spares a moment before returning to the fray to smile at him, the corners of her mouth sharp like his daggers. "Take the aid the offer you. When next I defeat you in battle, I should like it to be a fair fight." 

"That makes one of us," he wheezes, and she laughs.


End file.
